Roxy Music - Country Life

I know I say this a lot, but considering that I have gone through major Roxy Music phases over the past few years, it is surprising that I haven't written about them at all, apparently. This just happens to be the first one that I grabbed out of a bunch that I have.

Country Life was the band's fourth album, released in 1974 after Eno had left the band and, whether than had anything to do with it or not, this is a more straight-forward "rock" album - at least as much as the art-school denizens Roxy could ever do.

The opening "Thrill of it All" is a piano-pounder, with some fierce guitar playing from the amazing Phil Manzanera and solid rockin' from John Gustafson on bass and Paul Thompson on drums and new key/synth player Edwin Jobson adding some nice icing to the proceedings. "Three and Nine" is a quieter bit of psych/pop co-written and featuring horn-man Andy Mackay, along with Bryan Ferry on some melodic harmonica. They come back with some loud power chords in "All I Want Is You" and, again, Manzanera wails while Ferry adds pop melodies to the top. Flanged almost to the point of distraction is "Out of the Blue" that mixes artiness with psych and hard rock and gives Jobson some freedom to take off on his violin, which obviously influenced Ultravox! on their first album. Side one of the vinyl ended with a kinda honky-tonk/r'n'b number, "If It Takes All Night", with Mackay giving some 50's style sax-work and Ferry blowing some blues harp. Definitely versatile!

Speaking of their versatility, "Bitter-Sweet" starts as a piano ballad and then crashes with some guitar chords and an eerie-sounding oom-pah band while Ferry sings in German - aided in the lyrics by the scantily-clad cover models! And then "Triptych" has an Elizabethan choral flavor! But they get back into a mid-tempo rock groove in "Casanova", a dark tale of some self-proclaimed cad who is "flirting with heroin, or is it cocaine?" Great feel in this one! "A Really Good Time" is a soundtrack-ish ballad from Bryan with plenty of synth "orchestration". The record closed with "Prairie Rose", a rockin' ode to Ferry's love at the time, Texan Jerry Hall, with a typical mix of styles, ranging from C&W to art-rock - and somehow it works!

Of course, the cover photo was highly controversial at the time and was censored in many countries, but was certain to get the attention of the group's male fans! The musical direction made this the first Roxy album to break the American Top 40 record charts and made way for their break-through smash on their following album.